In the News

Noose Discovery Puts Chatfield School on Edge

Curt Brown, Star Tribune

January 17, 2008

It was the noon recess at Chatfield High School when a supervisor noticed a black doll with a rope wrapped around its neck, hanging from a stage-area railing.

In the two weeks since the unsettling discovery, a debate has simmered in the southeastern Minnesota town of 2,400 people about 20 miles southeast of Rochester. The school of 430 students includes fewer than 10 children of color, and less than 2 percent are black.

"I was very, very mad," said ninth-grader Tychelle Stoos, 14, whose mixed-race family includes a black older sister. "I don't think they did everything they could have."

Principal Randy Paulson insists school officials "treated it not as a prank, but as a racist harassment situation."

He said two students have been disciplined after admitting they were the perpetrators. He said he couldn't discuss "the consequences" because a police investigation is ongoing.

One parent said the two boys were suspended for only two days.

"We're definitely not trying to sweep it under the rug," the principal said. "We immediately turned it over to law enforcement officials."

Chatfield Police Chief Shane Fox said he spent more than a week investigating the alleged hate crime and sent his reports to the Olmsted County attorney's office for possible charges.

County Attorney Mark Ostrem said his office hasn't received the file yet.

"It hasn't been handled in a timely manner and we weren't informed," said Tammi Stoos, a mother with three children in the school, including Tychelle and her sisters.

"I don't know if they could have prevented it," she said. "But, sadly, it happened, and it could be a learning moment for the school, the students and Chatfield. Instead, they're saying they've done all they can do, and I don't think that's necessarily the case.

"They have policies and procedures about girls wearing spaghetti straps and showing midriffs," she said. "But something like this gets a little suspension, and I don't think that's enough."

Paulson said that the school has contacted the Rochester Diversity Council about possible racial justice programming and that Mixed Blood Theatre will put on a previously scheduled play about Martin Luther King Jr. at the school next week.

"In this day and time, especially coming up on the Martin Luther King celebration this Monday, this is really disheartening and very disappointing," said C. Estelle Souchet Graves, president of the Rochester NAACP.

She said a recent Diversity Council survey in Rochester showed 70 percent of respondents said they believed there was more discrimination than 10 years ago.

"Whether this was a prank or intentional, the message is the same: It's not acceptable to have these types of racial expressions in our communities," she said. "We cannot avoid or discard it as an isolated incident or an anomaly."

Although reports of recent racist hate crimes in Minnesota high schools are rare, at least four colleges or universities reported racial incidents since the school year began.

"It appears we're taking a step backwards," the NAACP president said, "and it makes me fear that Dr. King's dream has come to a dead halt."

She credited Tammi Stoos for stepping forward.

"Parents have been very supportive and said how sorry they were," Stoos said.

Added her 14-year-old daughter: "I just don't believe color should describe someone."

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